Unhappy with your Internship Experience? Here’s How to Deal!
Everyone has high hopes at the beginning of their internship experience. You will expect to learn many new knowledge and skills, create many networks, and to be involved in important projects. However, reality is often not as sweet as a dream. This is not to say that great internships do not exist, just that you need to prepare yourself to have a not-so-great or downright awful one. What should you do when you find yourself in a less-than-ideal internship? Based on our actual internship experiences, here are several things that you could do.
Understand why you are unhappy with the internship
Try asking yourself these questions to better understand the reason of your unhappiness with the internship experience.
For one, are you unhappy with the work? Some interns quickly lose their interest and excitement when they are always dealing with menial or grunt works. Some might be too overwhelmed with the work they receive.
Are you having a hard time working with your boss? Undoubtedly, your boss play a very important role in your internship. Some lucky interns might get a boss who will coach them and assign them substantial work. But some boss might completely ignore your existence or worse, be completely unreasonable.
Or, are you having problems with your colleagues? One of the main reason to have an internship is to build a network, who one day might become someone you can do business with, or just a friend. Not getting along with your coworkers might just sour the entirety of your internship experience.
Once you have pinpointed the reason, you can start trying to find the solution to make the most of your internship.
Understand that every jobs come with grunt works
Make sure that your expectation for the internship is realistic. Sometimes disappointment can stem from the fact that you over-idealize your dream job. When the reality does not match your expectation, you start feeling disappointed. You expect to be involved directly on an important projects and deal with high-end customers, when on reality, you have to deal with a lot of paperwork. When you have proven that you can handle the menial jobs with good grace, you will graduate to bigger responsibilities soon!
Be proactive
Make an effort to be more proactive. If you feel like you can do more, after your own work is done, ask your boss whether you can help with anything else. Show to your boss that you have finished your own work and that you are ready for more challenging job. If you know that a new interesting project is going on in the office, you can ask your boss whether you can be involved on it. On the other hand, if you are feeling overwhelmed with the work, also talk with your boss. Ask for suggestion on how to better tackle it. You can also ask your colleagues about what can you do to help them.
Avoid Conflicts and Office Politics
Try to make friend with everyone regardless of their position. Greet them first in the morning, go out together for lunch and join after-work events. This is the chance where you can learn how to get along with many different types of people and build your network. As an intern, it is best to stay away from office politics, especially office gossip. Gossiping in the office, like everywhere else, will make you seem very unprofessional and mean-spirited. When you have a problem with someone or you feel like someone is treating you unfairly, talk to them privately. It is better to address conflict like this in the beginning before it becomes worse.
Have the right attitude
Instead of feeling miserable and negative with your internship experience, try to change your attitude. With a positive attitude, you can change how you deal with the situation. For one, take it as a chance to learn and grow. With the stress and uncertainty you experience, learn how to work in a high pressure environment and work more independently. When dealing with difficult coworkers, learn how to communicate and work in team more effectively. Moreover, this internship might just be the experience you need to decide that you are not in the right field. Having this realization early, which means in an internship instead of a real job, will save you the time and money for pursuing the wrong career.
When you are unhappy with your internship, you might be tempted to take the easy way out, which is quitting. However, considering that an internship is usually only for a short period of time, it might be better deal with it and learn as much as you can from it. The exception will be when you are being treated unfairly or taken advantage of, then quitting might be your only choice.
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